beforethestorm
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'Life is Strange: Before the Storm' ends with 'Farewell' DLC episode
If looking for more nostalgic content from episodic prequel Life is Strange: Before the Storm, you're in luck. A new bonus episode, titled "Farewell," is available now on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and Steam (PC). It stars Chloe and Max's original voice actors Ashly Burch and Hanna Telle, too, so you know it will be up to snuff. In addition, the boxed retail version of the game will launch March 6th in the US, with PAL versions available on Friday, March 9th. The box will contain a physical art book and the licensed soundtrack on CD.
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WoW Blog Roundup: 2.0.1 Edition
The patch came out yesterday and as you'd imagine, we have some opinions from around the WoW blogging community... Paladin Sucks checks in with an interesting piece regarding 2.0.1 pally specs (go figure) and why they like the talent system. Paladin Sucks likes something? Wow! Tobold looks at the changes for healers in 2.0.1. He is not happy. Like Mike, Photon at AFK Gamer is none too thrilled about Blizzard's response to the planned warrior protest. Lauren from Mystic Worlds looks at the different talent specs in 2.0.1. Hopefully 2.0.1 keeps Lauren around for a bit. Relmstein has some suggestions for new loading screen tips. Finally, Not Addicted checks in with one of my favorite topics, the level one alt forum troll! If you happen to read a good blog entry, or you write one yourself, let us know!
201 issues in 2.0.1
OK, well maybe there's not exactly that many issues, but there's quite a few floating around with the new patch today. No Arena masters, for one. Here's a few more I've heard about so far. Druids are just plain confused. The patch notes had tons of changes for them, but it looks like only two showed up in the actual patch, the Omen of Clarity buff and Swiftmend. What's up with that? The devs are saying the patch notes are wrong, and there's no word about whether an update will change things later. A lot of druids are confused about it, and rightfully so-- why put stuff in the patch notes that doesn't get implemented? There's crazy addon issues, for sure. None of my addons worked at all (they didn't just say "out of date", they actually said "incompatible"), and for a lot of major addons there's no word yet when an update is forthcoming. We knew this would happen, but it still sucks, especially for guilds like mine who plan to raid tomorrow. The LFG interface is cool, but there's a few kinks in it, most notably that I couldn't seem to join a group for lower level instances on my 60. If I have a quest in Sunken Temple or Maraudon, why can't I find a group for it? Also, it appears (confirmation on this?) that the raids aren't in the LFG interface either. The stealth animations were speed increased (walking speed in stealth), but frankly it looks like characters are "doing the pee pee dance"-- they're jerky and wrong. Petition has been started on the rogue forums to fix them. Appears that because of the changes to thrown items (they don't stack-- instead they lose durability when used), equipped thrown items have disappeared forever. Finally, this isn't Blizzard's fault, but the battleground servers are being obliterated right now with all the people jumping in to try out their new specs. I was in Arathi Basin 167, and it lasted for all of three minutes before it froze up, flipped over, and died on the spot. On the flip side, there is a lot of good coming out of the patch: Pallys are thrilled, and while Druids are a little unhappy, they do like that treeform. I've already seen a few Shamans walking around dual wielding (I had to stay Resto, unfortunately, so no DW for me until the expansion). Warriors, from what I've heard, are happier than they thought they would be with rage normalization (their new talents helped a bit). Priests have some new tricks up their sleeve, as do Hunters. Locks still own. And it seems true that no matter what this patch does, it will definitely breathe some new life into a game that a lot of people were getting bored of. There may be 201 problems, but players not playing tonight ain't one.
Let the delays begin!
Of course having the servers back online as scheduled was too good to be true. And at 12:09 PM PST, Blizzard announced that maintenance would be extended by an additional four hours in order to deal with issues arising from the patching process. Yes, that means you shouldn't expect to be online and playing before 4:00 PM PST 5:00 PM PST -- at least if we're optimistic enough to assume this will be the afternoon's only hiccup!Update: Drysc, always trying to outdo me, posted an update by the time I clicked to post this. We are now looking at 5:00 PM PST.Update 2: All realms should be online and accepting players as of 6:00 PM PST.
Respeccing for 2.0
Tomorrow's the big day -- WoW is getting patched and rolling over to 2.0. Bye-bye honor rankings, bye-bye DHKs, hello new LFG system, and new spells and talents for all. Oh, and every character in the game will log in after the patch is applied with a completely free respec.So things will likely look very different in terms of specs on Wednesday (my guild has an MC run planned, and I can't wait to see what happens). Personally, I like my rogue's combat daggers spec, so I'll probably keep it (he's only 50 now, so I'm not real worried about it). My warrior is currently specced protection, but hasn't been getting much play (or DPS) as a tank, so I may flip him fury or half prot-half fury. My priest is staying shadow, but my shaman -- for the expansion, I'm planning to switch him to elemental instead of restoration, so by Wednesday he may be much more deadly with lightning bolts than healing waves (not sure how that will go over in my guild raids, however).If you're thinking about respeccing, Mystic Worlds has posted a nice little commentary on how specs work -- while you should really spec for the talents and abilities you play with, for each class there's usually three or four different ways to set things up, either for soloing (or leveling), PVP, or PVE play. Of course, you don't have to respec on Wednesday -- you could just choose the same talents you have in place now. But since everything is changing so much (even your regular spec will have a few new shines to it), this might be your chance to be something a little bit different than you're used to.
Patch "Before the Storm" coming December 5th
New patch, called "Before the Storm." New PVP honor system. December 5. Confirmed.If you're still working toward a rank, better work fast. Drysc says the armor and weapons will still be around, but Blizz is basically giving players still aiming for a rank title a week's notice with this one. Rumors say that Blizzard will return the rank title system eventually, but it may not be in the same form it's in now-- all we know so far is that players will be able to show the highest rank title they earned before the patch hits. Unfortunately, I don't have much time this week, so it looks like my Shammy will be a Senior Sergeant forever.Meanwhile, I can't wait to see the new LFG system in action, watch DHKs go bye-bye, and see how the new PVP honor points will work on the public servers, along with all the other fun stuff in this patch set to roll before the expansion in January. Next Tuesday! Can't wait!
